Scratch My Back And
by Dibsthe1
Summary: Dib tries to strike a deal... any kind of deal... with Gaz, but will settle for keeping the earth safe. Finally completed.
1. What's In It For Me?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

**Scratch My Back And... **

Chapter One: What's in it for me?

"_Neither older brother nor younger brother." Japanese expression describing complete chaos, something with no order or organization; similar to our own "I can't make head or tail out of it."_

Shutting the door of the nurse's office, Dib attempted a slight grimace and winced. Yes, his nose was still sore from when Zim had driven the ruler three inches into it. Furious, Dib had grabbed a ruler himself and prepared to return the favor... until he remembered Zim didn't even have a nose.

The wait had taken much longer than the actual treatment, a sharp tug followed by a stinging swab of antiseptic. Now Dib checked his watch; lunch had already started, so he headed briskly for the cafeteria, hoping something actually edible remained.

On his way to the food counter, Dib hurried past tables full of kids babbling happily away. A few of them looked up as he went by, not to welcome him to sit at their table but to make sure he sat elsewhere. On the plus side, they generally left him alone at lunchtime, as long as he didn't do anything they considered too weird.

Now carrying a tray of steamed beans and creamed meat, Dib soon located the only table at which he could sit. It was the loneliest table in the room, unoccupied except for one person, Gaz. Her own lunch long since finished, she was hunched intently over her GameSlave.

Gaz much preferred a completely empty table, but nobody else was willing to sit with Dib and she reluctantly conceded that he had to sit somewhere. As she took most of her breakfasts and more than a few suppers with Dib, Gaz could hardly claim that the sight of him killed her appetite. As he approached her table, however, she shot him a glance which he knew was a warning that if he made too much noise for her liking, he'd be sorry.

Before sitting down, Dib scanned the cafeteria until he located Zim, sitting two tables over with Keef, Melvin, Dirge, and Matthew P. Mathers III. Even the other skool rejects could band together for a sort of miserable solidarity.

As he braced for the taunts which would surely follow Zim's having sent him in defeat to the nurse's office, Dib soon realized Zim was being strangely quiet... quiet for Zim, that is. Now the alien's attempts to blend in with the crowd included being careful not to be any louder than anyone else. And when Zim talked without screaming at the top of his lungs, that could mean only one thing: he was definitely up to something!

To better catch Zim's every word, any one of which could be a vital clue, Dib actually listened instead of speaking his every thought aloud... and this, much to Gaz's relief, kept Dib most uncharacteristically quiet as well.

Dib listened intently to Zim's words weaving in and out of the various conversations. For the first time in a long while, he heard the mundane content of the other kids' everyday chat. None of them was discussing anything interesting, just the latest gossip about which kid had asked which kid out; occasionally they expanded their subject matter enough to wonder which movie star was now going out with which singer or drummer of what band. Dib pulled a face, carefully; his nose was still aching. How could anyone confine themselves to such boring subjects the day after the most intriguing episode ever of "Mysterious Mysteries"?

Dib stood up to watch Zim push his spork around in today's menu offerings, quietly pretending to eat his lunch and beyond doubt cooking up a spectacularly evil scheme. Instead of the usual random shrieks of "I'M NORMAL!" one minute and "I AM ZI-II-IIIM!" the next, Zim was saying to Keef, "Yes, I'm a perfectly normal human worm baby." Licking the wrapper of a tomato flavored fruit rollup, Keef nodded. "You mean you're perfectly normal too?" continued Zim. "Well, well, well! Isn't that normal. What is the most normal thing you talk about... normally?"

But before Dib could hear any normal conversations, a big red haired kid, Keef's older brother Teef, stalked up and interrupted.

"Hey, Keef, my calculator's batteries are dead, let me borrow yours." Teef was already holding out his hand.

"No!" Keef said, giggling even as he refused.

Dib frowned. _Oh, how they loved saying that to you every chance they got... _

"Come on, Keef, I need it. I have a big test this afternoon."

"Okay. You can have the... batteries!" Keef began laughing as if this was the funniest joke in the world.

"Your batteries won't fit my calculator. I need the whole thing, Keef. Please."

"Push them!" Keef started laughing again.

Not getting the joke, Teef leaned in menacingly. "Give it now... or I'll get you good as soon as we get home!"

"Then I'll yell and mom and dad'll catch you!"

"Then I'll get you later, when they're not around!"

They both fell quiet for a few seconds, deadlocked.

"Just for this one afternoon. Right after skool I'll give it right back. I promise." Teef glanced at the clock uneasily. "Tell you what. Next time I to that cool comic place I'll bring one home for you. How's that?"

"Hooray! Okay I want some comics and action figures and a really BIG poster and a T-shirt and a... " Keef began rattling off his wish list as happily if they were in the store already and it was Christmas Eve. Perhaps he figured that by requesting as many items as he could think of, he might actually get two of them. If that was the case, it worked.

"Whoa, whoa. Okay, two... but that's my final offer."

So Teef walked away with the calculator in his hand and a look of relief on his face, while Keef beamed with anticipation as he finished his lunch.

Even after watching it happen right in front of him, Dib still couldn't figure out how the situation had so rapidly gone from teasing and threats, to total stalemate, to both sides getting exactly what they wanted. Whenever he tried asking Gaz for anything, even when he offered her something in exchange, her response was much more likely to be, "If you want to keep all your limbs, you will shut up NOW."

Now that Keef's brother had finally left, Dib could once again hear what Zim was saying to him. But by this time the alien was talking to Melvin, sitting on his other side. "LI-II-IIES! That is nothing more than the Dib human's filthy human LIES! Whatever I am, I am NOT an alien here to enslave all humans, and I am even more NOT an invader from a planet planning to rule the entire universe."

"Oh," said Melvin, completely convinced.

Dib shook his head. How did anybody get this gullible?

"I want to be an astronaut!" Melvin went on.

"I wouldn't!" said Zim, too quickly. "It's too lonely out there. I never see anybody when I'm flying around in space, no Meekrob or Plookesians or Vortians, and certainly not one single Irken. No, nobody at all."

Melvin looked like he was about to ask what else wasn't out there, but before he could do so, a plump little girl from Grade One or Two ran up to him, whining, "I got no lunch money!" as piteously as a starving orphan begging for a penny.

"Mom told us that had to last the whole week. What did you do with yours? Melanie...?"

Melanie didn't want to answer, but as Melvin had the money she wanted, she eventually did. "I... I spent it."

"On...?"

"C - Candy!" Melanie covered her face and began to cry, but whether they were crocodile tears or the real deal, Dib had no idea. When Gaz was disappointed, frustrated, or upset, God knew crying was the last thing she'd do...

Then Dib saw something Melvin didn't notice; Melanie peeked from behind her hand to check his reaction before crying even louder. Melvin reached for his pocket. "Okay, okay," he sighed, taking out a bill.

Melanie grabbed for the money and would have carelessly skipped away, but Melvin held one corner until she met his eyes. "If I tell Mom I lost my lunch money twice in one week she'll get mad at me... so don't tell her... and... And! Do NOT spend this on candy too." He wouldn't let go until she promised she wouldn't do either.

Dib shuddered, remembering what happened whenever he tried holding out for something in exchange whenever Gaz wanted something from him. She simply said, "If you want to keep all your limbs you will give me that NOW."

Remembering one more reason he seldom bothered to eavesdrop, Dib sighed. As long as his own experience of being firstborn was the only one he knew, he could simply resign himself to it as he would a hideous birthmark or hereditary disease. What he heard from the other kids both reminded him otherwise and emphasized his own failings. Since nothing he'd seen working for the other kids had ever worked on Gaz, Dib still wondered what he was doing wrong.

In the rest of the world, younger siblings were rarely worse than impish and mouthy, and even then they tended to joke their way out of difficult situations or play up the cute and helpless angle; it was older siblings who negotiated from positions of power. At the very least, the additional work and responsibilities shouldered by the older kids were balanced against extra privileges.

Older siblings got more household chores, but they also got a bigger allowance. Few kids liked it when their parents went out leaving an older sibling in charge, but if anything went wrong that same older sibling would be held responsible. Kids were expected to protect their younger siblings, but if their younger siblings teased them too much, these same bigger kids could just as easily turn this physical strength to their own advantage.

Things existed in perpetual balance... in other families, that is.

As the older sibling, Dib invariably got the duty of going out for groceries, but as soon as the food was home Gaz seized first pick of everything and defended this self-awarded privilege savagely. For all the pizza that was consumed in their household, Dib was certain that if he ever reached for the first slice, even after going out for it himself in a downpour or snowstorm, he would lose his hand.

As the older kid, Dib did all the cleaning up. Gaz's part was to traipse all around the house eating what she liked when she liked, leaving more messes for Dib to clean up.

Although only one year separated them, Dib was expected to be there whenever Gaz needed him... but he couldn't count on her for a single thing.

Because Dib was all of a year older than Gaz, when their mother died their father suddenly proclaimed Dib old enough to start doing chores. By this time, however, Gaz was _also_ older than she had been then... but she continued to act with as much indulgence and as little responsibility as she had when she was in kindergarten. Dib was still waiting for her to feel like cooking dinner, for one thing.

And as for his father leaving him in charge as the older kid... what a joke. Trying to advise Gaz not to do something was one way for Dib to risk a beating up, and her now much greater physical strength made her raging tantrums even less adorable and benign than ever. If Gaz's forbidden project backfired and made a mess, she just walked away leaving Dib to contend with any consequences. When Gaz spoke to him at all other than to say shut up, it was to tell him what she wanted him to do, and if he ever prepared anything for supper other than what Gaz wanted, there'd be all nine circles of hell to pay.

Zim's voice speaking his name took Dib out of these unpleasant musings. The alien was now trying to strike up a conversation with someone at the next table. "Yes indeed, Dib is nothing more than a pathetic earth monkey. I myself am perfectly normal, just like all these other pathetic earth monkeys."

Unfortunately, the debate which just then sprang up between Dirge and Matthew P. Mathers III made it difficult for Dib to hear anything else.

"I was born with webbed fish toes, like some sort of horrible fish boy! Wanna see?"

At this invitation, Matthew P.Mathers III screamed and turned even paler than he already was, if that was possible. "No! Don't!"

"Aw c'mon! It's really gross and cool!" Dirge reached for his shoelaces, but hesitated when Matthew P. Mathers III crouched, preparing to run. "Just a little peep?" he wheedled. Just two seconds? One second! One half second? Aw, c'mon! Please?"

Somehow Dib found himself wondering what the outcome of this unusual scene would be. Most kids would jump at a chance to see anything unusual (unless it was paranormal, he thought ruefully), and if Dib himself had some deformity, he certainly wouldn't want anybody staring at it. Constantly hearing about his supposedly large head got to be tiresome enough.

Suddenly Dirge offered the skoolyard's standard currency. "I'll give you a baseball card."

Matthew P. Mathers III just held his stomach and shook his head.

"I'll give you two baseball cards!"

Matthew P. Mathers III still wasn't interested.

"Three? Four! Five... and that's my final offer!"

Matthew P. Mathers III eyes now brightened. "Six... and I get to pick. AND... !" Here his eyes hardened.

"And?" Already untying his shoelaces, Dirge now hesitated.

"A really good movie's on tonight but we have homework."

"So? Do your homework while you watch TV!"

"My dad won't let me do them both together. You take my notebook home tonight and do my homework after you do your own... and you can show me your... gulp...toes... when you give me my notebook tomorrow... WITH all my homework done!"

"What? With that good movie on tonight? No way!" Dirge started to tie his shoelaces again.

"You want to show me your toes, don't you?"

Dirge paused. "Okay," he agreed, and finished tying his shoelaces, patting the tips of his shoes as if he was already showing off his webbed toes. Dirge had finally gotten Matthew P. Mathers III to surrender... or had Dirge surrendered? Either way, both kids were now happy.

Hmmm, so that _was_ in fact how you did it. Both sides wanted something, both sides had something, both sides offered something, and both sides got something. In fact, Dib _had_ been offering Gaz something that he knew she would want whenever he was asking her for something, or at the very least pointing out how she would benefit, but it never worked for him. Dib's thoughts went back to what had happened after breakfast that very morning.

"Gaz are you turning on the TV NOW?" he carefully asked. Sitting down to watch early morning cartoons, she ignored him as completely as if he wasn't even there.

"Even if we run all the way we might still be late! Why don't you just record the program so you can watch it after skool, when you can relax without watching the clock?"

Without taking her eyes off the TV screen, Gaz finally bothered to speak. "YOU watch the clock."

"But Gaz I have to be there early! This is important! Please, just this once!"

"Whiner!" Gaz sneered contemptuously at his pleas... even though a more forceful approach would have gotten Dib soundly smacked around.

"Zim's probably plotting something right now Gaz! The fate of the world could be at stake!"

As she usually did when he began sounding desperate, Gaz turned away from him, her shoulders shaking as though she was stifling laughter.

"Gaz, all I need to do is stop him once and for all! That's all I'm asking. Once the world is safe, I'll wait as long as you want... any morning you want. How's this? I'll even keep quiet!"

"I don't want to wait that long. Shut up now, idiot."

Suddenly quiet, Dib swallowed hard. Why did she always use that word? Dib's intelligence was the very thing he liked most about himself, so this insult hurt him worse than any other. Slowly, he walked away.

A few minutes later he returned, cautiously offering Gaz her backpack. Wordlessly she stared at him, stared until that nervous grin she so enjoyed began to appear on Dib's face. Through gritted teeth she ground out the words. "You will sit. Down and wait. Until I'm good. And. Ready. Idiot." That word again...

Gaz's eyes continued to drill into his until Dib sank back onto the couch, knowing only too well what that glare meant. That she hadn't actually attacked him as often lately didn't mean that she was finally learning how to act like a civilized human being, far from it. More and more often lately, he simply chose the lesser of two evils and did as she wanted rather than risk the pain and worse, the humiliation of yet another beating from his "little" sister.

He constantly faced an unholy choice, one with no correct response. Standing up for himself only got him beaten up; backing down to stay safe left him feeling weak and worthless. After each of these incidents meeting his own eyes in the mirror got more and more difficult, even when she didn't rub it in. At least this time she was too engrossed in the cartoons to flick out that brazen, snotty little phrase she loved to mouth so much, the "rightful order."

After another panicky glance at his watch, Dib slowly stood up and began to back towards the door. "Okay, I'll just go on ahead, and you can catch up with - "

"We are leaving together you idiot, that is final, and if you don't shut up this second I'll KICK you all the way to skool when we do!"

His insides curling with shame, Dib meekly sat down to continue waiting. He was grateful for one thing only, that nobody else was around to witness this.

Only when Zim walked right past him without a word could Dib stop dwelling on that embarrassing memory. Dumfounded that Zim would now take no notice of him at all, Dib stared after the alien for a moment after he left the cafeteria. "He's pretending I'm not even here!" Dib finally howled. "Usually he says his insults TO me, not ABOUT me! I KNOW he's planning something now!"

Only when he looked around to see if anyone at all was listening did Dib realize that he was the last kid remaining in the cafeteria. If he hurried he could still make it back to class on time.

X X X X X X

"... am amazingly normal, and in no way at all different from you inferior human pig smellies. I AM ZI-II-IIIM!"

As Zim concluded his class presentation (with all the other kids swallowing every obvious contradiction without question) Dib turned away in disgust. Outside the window, the sky filled with dark clouds, which made him feel even gloomier. All that careful eavesdropping over lunch had failed to bring in a single byte of information... except that his classmates could do something he couldn't... negotiate with a sibling.

Dib knew Zim better than anyone else, and when Zim was quiet, you could bet that meant something was definitely up. Dib fought off thoughts of the danger... whatever it was... looming closer every minute even as he tried to figure his best course of action. Muttering madly to himself, Dib gripped his forehead with one hand as with the other he frantically drummed his fingers on his desk, until he noticed Rob preparing to give him another wedgie.

What he needed, needed desperately, was a few kids, a teacher, anybody! to believe him. Even one ally in his corner would greatly tip the odds in Dib's... and therefore the earth's... favor. Even if whatever Zim was scheming up went beyond what they could deal with themselves, the authorities who kept telling him he was hallucinating would find dismissing an entire group of eyewitnesses NOT... QUITE... as easy as dismissing only one!

Now more quietly pondering the best approach, Dib recalled what he'd seen in the cafeteria. To get people to do something they weren't willing to do, you'd better show them how they would also benefit. Well, that was easy!

Even people who cared about nothing else cared about their own safety, that much Dib knew. Surely once they realized that their freedom, perhaps even their very lives, were at stake, they'd want to do something!

The biggest obstacle was that Zim wasn't right that minute doing anything out of the ordinary that anybody except Dib could even see, so Dib figured his best option was to expose Zim's claim of being human as an outright lie. When they realized they'd been lied to, people could get pretty angry, and once he'd made it that far, getting them suspicious of Zim would get a whole lot easier!

Since nobody else believed in aliens to begin with, Dib tried putting himself in their shoes. What would be the quickest way to convince them? Anyone trying to make Dib himself believe that an obvious hoax, such as Chickenfoot, was walking down the street, would have to cough up some convincing proof indeed. But with less than an hour remaining in the skool day, where would he find sufficient proof for such hardcore skeptics before skool ended and everyone went home?

As Dib discarded one plan after another, the clouds continued to build in the sky. Suddenly, raindrops began hitting the glass. Dib's face brightened immediately. Slowly, he turned around just enough to check whether Zim had noticed this change in the weather.

Indeed he had; the alien was now eyeing the window nervously. While it was by no means a cloudburst, enough was falling that Zim would be none too comfortable outdoors. Immediately Dib knew what he would do.

To keep his reaction to water a secret, Zim made sure to keep out of the rain as much as possible. Well, Dib saw this as one more chance to expose Zim as the alien he was, and head off the danger to his fellow classmates. Surely this time they would realize he was trying to save them, not annoy them!

Not soon enough for Dib, but all too soon for Zim, the bell rang and Ms. Bitters was predicting everybody was doomed to catch a fatal case of pneumonia from getting soaked on the way home. On his way out, Dib noted the alien taking his time preparing to leave, no doubt hoping to keep his dread of the rain to himself.

Dib took up a position against the wall just outside the door, springing on Zim as soon as the alien emerged from the classroom. Pushing Zim's head down took him completely by surprise, and twisting one of Zim's arms behind his back allowed Dib to keep his enemy off balance long enough to drag him past the other kids, past the teacher watching at the door, and right outside.

As soon as the stream of rainwater from the roof hit him, Zim yanked himself free and dashed back inside, rolling on the floor and screaming, as clouds of smoke began billowing. The other kids backed away to form a circle around him, not sure what, if anything, they should do. Even the teacher was staring, too surprised to utter a single word.

Dib was more than a little wet himself as he jumped back indoors, but if after this even one person believed him it would be well worth it!

"THERE! SEE?" he shrieked, pointing to Zim with one arm while flailing the other around in every direction. "I ask you, who else do you know... what HUMAN... does THAT... over a little rain? Screams... and... and SMOKES?"

For a second no one, except Zim, made a sound... Dib realized he was holding his breath...

End of this chapter

_(A/N) As this is my longest fic to date at 7 or 8 chapters, I'll be updating this one a chapter at a time._

_I admit to dragging my feet on the writing of this one, because the first half gets really sad. (Well some of us would think so.) Right now I'm waiting to hear from a beta reader, but once I resume posting, I'll be updating very quickly in case anybody else also finds this sort of thing depressing. _

_I don't want to bring this other person down too._


	2. What are you doing?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Thanks for your patience. I was getting everything ready several chapters ahead. AND I was having computer problems.

Chapter Two: What are you doing?

"_There are two things which I know are infinite, the universe and human stupidity... and I'm not so sure about the universe." Albert Einstein_

As soon as the stream of rainwater from the roof hit him, Zim yanked himself free and dashed back inside, rolling on the floor and screaming, as clouds of smoke began billowing. The other kids backed away to form a circle around him, not sure what, if anything, they should do. Even the teacher was staring, too surprised to utter a single word.

Dib was more than a little wet himself as he jumped back indoors, but if this demonstration got even person behind him, it would be well worth it!

"THERE! SEE?" he shrieked, pointing to Zim with one arm while flailing the other around in every direction. "I ask you, who else do you know... what HUMAN... does THAT... over a little rain? Screams... and... and SMOKES?"

For a second no one, except Zim, made a sound... Dib realized he was holding his breath...

"NOW do you see NOW? THAT'S what I'm talking about! And that's not all he does!"

As the teacher looked from Zim to Dib, frowning at such roughness, one of the kids suddenly spoke up.

"My aunt hates rain and sometimes she goes out and it starts to rain and she screams and runs

back inside and looks for her rain bonnet," Keef offered helpfully. He added, "And she smokes too."

Only with great difficulty did Dib restrain himself from pounding his head against the wall in frustration. "People... only... smoke... when they have... A CIGARETTE!" he pointed out with forced calm, but the damage to his point had been done. "... or a PIPE, or a... "

"No, Dib, it's do YOU see?" sniffed Zita, turning on her heel and walking out the door.

"... or a CIGAR or a TORCH or a LANTERN, or... or a... "

"Ignore Dib, he's just crazy," was the general consensus among the kids, shoving their way

past him. The teacher just shook her head and tut tutted.

X X X X X X

Holding his books over his head like a makeshift umbrella, Zim ran for the safety of his base as fast as he could go. Watching him, Dib hopped from one foot to the other in a powerless frenzy , knowing only too well that once securely barricaded indoors, the alien would continue his evil plotting against the earth!

But taking it up with Zim would have to wait for the following day; that morning Gaz had made it quite clear that she expected Dib to come home with her after skool instead of chasing any green kid.

Weighing the options, Dib quickly decided that once he and Gaz were home again, he could always run out again in pursuit of Zim. Wait a minute, on top of all that, today was grocery day; over breakfast that morning he'd noticed that the cereal was getting low. Asking Gaz just this once to lift a finger got him ignored at best; asking her a second time was never a good idea. Okay, then after he got the groceries he'd get Zim!

As the rain began to fall harder, other kids' parents began driving up to the school to pick them up. Though he knew full well what the chances were, Dib couldn't resist a quick look around for their own family car. As famous as his father was, Dib would feel privileged beyond compare if his dad could simply keep a half hour free once in a while to pick them up at skool.

Dib abandoned his brief and fruitless search to turn back to the skool doors. "Hurry, Gaz!" he implored. "The fate of the world depends on how quick you get out today!"

Gaz finally appeared in the middle of the crowd of yelling kids charging down the hall, her eyes as usual glued to nothing else but her GameSlave. When somebody suddenly jostled her in running past, Gaz put her game on Pause just long enough to catch this someone and viciously slam whoever it was halfway through the wall.

So when Dib ran up to her to share all the information he had collected that day, he was even more careful than usual not to actually run into her. "I know he's up to something Gaz! I just know it! He's been quiet all day! He's never quiet! Haven't you ever heard the expression 'the calm before the storm'?"

Though certainly capable of delivering a storm herself, Gaz remained ominously silent as they began to head home.

"Gaz, please, listen. This is important. I mean, REALLY important. If we don't do anything and the earth is destroyed, there'll be no more video games. Or pizza either." Not much got Gaz's attention, but if this didn't, nothing would.

Gaz was determined not to grant him even enough attention to say shut up.

In his passion Dib took this lack of her usual snarling rudeness to indicate actual interest. "Oh, thanks Gaz! This is really important and you can be a real big help! I'll do anything you want! I won't say anything while you play your video games and I won't even say anything at all ever and I'll even make sure you have fresh batteries all the time and... !

"Ahem... so. If you see Zim in the hall tomorrow, take careful note of where he is and the time, and make sure you tell me at lunch if you see him in the morning, and if you see him in the afternoon - "

As they continued along the sidewalk bordering the skool playground, Dib continued describing all his plans and backup plans, complete with some really ingenious ways for Gaz to get a coded message to him should the danger be immediate and were she so inclined... not that Gaz was responding to a single word he was saying.

Just as two vampire piggies appeared on opposite sides of the screen, requiring the utmost concentration and split second timing, Dib shrieked, "GAZ WATCH OUT!"

The GameSlave leaped from Gaz's fingers but she nimbly caught it in midair... just in time to see the "Game Over" screen. The car, which had halted inches away from her with a brief tire screech, received only the barest flicker of her notice as it turned aside, windshield wipers slapping indignantly, to pick up some other kid.

Gaz was much more aware of the lost game than any car. She avoided a world she viewed with only the iciest contempt by saturating herself in video games; only now did she realize it was even raining, and she directed her glare at Dib as if the weather was his doing.

Whether or not excessive video game playing makes a person more violent or just more insensitive is a matter of much speculation. But their constant stimulation definitely does make a person much less tolerant of interruptions.

Dib turned cold all over. Telling Gaz what to do was never a good idea, raising his voice to her was even worse, and a lost game certainly didn't help matters. Anything could happen now.

But instead of immediately flying into him with all four fists and feet, she did the last thing he expected. She defiantly stepped off the sidewalk and stomped out to the dotted line in the middle of the road, where she turned around, stuck out her chin, and folded her arms high on her chest. From this spot she stared Dib straight in the eye to demonstrate that she certainly had no intentions of watching out for anything or anybody simply because he told her to.

"GAZ! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Frantically Dib whipped his head back and forth as the traffic churned past her in both directions. That the cars now avoided the center line more carefully than ever was completely lost on Dib. His whirling mind grappled with one question: if chasing after her would make matters better or worse.

Pedestrians, both kids and parents, began noticing the girl in the middle of the street. Someone taller than Dib shouted behind him, "Go out there and get her, you big stupid thing, before a car hits your poor little sister!" even as the younger kids cheered Gaz on with, "You show him!"

What such reckless disregard for her own safety was supposed to "show" anybody, Dib couldn't imagine. While such a savagely determined young girl might be an amusing novelty to some, Dib knew nothing was praiseworthy about such sheer pigheadedness embraced for its own sake at the worst possible time and place.

"This is dangerous, Gaz, for you and for EVERYBODY!" Dib protested, as another car swept by. Staring at Gaz the whole time, the driver veered dangerously close to another knot of kids who were leaving the skoolyard and who weren't seeing too well themselves, what with keeping their heads covered.

Despite the rain, kids from the other classes were pausing to watch the unfolding drama. They kept exchanging comments like "Wow, she can sure stand up for herself!" even as they wondered why he had "allowed" her to go out in the road in the first place. Dib couldn't believe his ears. If anybody got run over, not only would they change their tune quickly enough, he'd end up getting blamed for the result of Gaz's stubbornness.

Strangers's invitations to "Come here, honey," went completely ignored. Dib kept hearing, "Just tell her to get out of the road, you wimp!" but that was precisely how she came to be there in the first place... and he had no desire to make a bad situation still worse.

Each time Dib got desperate enough to brace himself for a quick dash out into the street after her, a car would zoom up from nowhere, blocking his path and splashing gutter water over him. Some drivers honked their horns, each blast driving him into deeper agonies of terror and helplessness, guilt and embarrassment.

Despite her brother's concern for her safety, Gaz was obviously relishing every second of the scene she was creating. She leaped on every opportunity she could get to make Dib squirm, and milked it of all possible opportunities to rub his nose in the fact that the upper hand was unrelentingly and unmistakably hers.

Whatever you show most people, however absurd, however unjust, they accept blindly and without question, and the witnesses to this spectacle were no exception. Whenever horrible things happened to Dib, people concluded that he therefore deserved them. That everyone called Dib crazy was proof enough for many that he really was crazy. Gaz would need a good reason to be standing out in the middle of the road; therefore, chasing its own lazy, circular logic, the crowd automatically assumed that she did have a good reason.

To make matters even worse, their pre-existing beliefs about big brothers and little sisters twisted Dib's pleas into threats, while insisting on hearing Gaz's threats as pleas.

"GAZ! THIS ISN'T FUNNY! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Dib shouted even louder.

"Stop threatening to kill that poor little girl!" shouted someone behind Dib, as Gaz's already grim expression hardened still more.

"Dib. I'm warning you. Shut up or we'll be out here all night."

"Yes, just let her back on the sidewalk!" shouted someone else.

Helpless to end this horrible deadlock, Dib found himself fighting back a sudden terror that he wouldn't be able to keep from crying, right here in front of everybody. Without warning, the words leaped from his throat. "GAZ! PLEASE! GET OUT OF THE ROAD BEFORE YOU GET RUN OVER!"

Raising her foot over the far lane, Gaz ground her words out through gritted teeth. "If you don't shut your mouth... right now Dib... I'll step out in the middle of the OTHER lane. Now SHUT... UP!"

Completely disarmed, Dib fell silent, still twitching his head back and forth as the traffic continued to pass by her. A thought briefly passed through his mind to just walk away, escape this crowd and leave Gaz to start watching out for traffic herself, but it left him just as quickly. Writhing with helplessness and guilt but having no idea what to do, he began scratching up inside the sleeves of his trench coat.

After what seemed like forever, a lull finally came in the traffic. Without a glance to either the left or the right, Gaz finally headed back towards the sidewalk. Holding his breath in the silence, Dib swore he could hear tires screech somewhere.

Two steps before she would have regained the safety of the sidewalk, Gaz planted her feet. When Dib reached out to pull her in the rest of the way the look in her eyes changed his mind. A cement truck could have been heading toward her but she didn't seem too concerned.

With what seemed like the entire skool watching, Gaz dictated her terms of what Dib would have to do before she would finally end this twisted game. With steel in her voice, she ordered, "Say you're sorry."

The absurdity threw so intense a spinning sensation into Dib that he threw out his arms to keep his balance. _ME? ME? ME SORRY?_

Even over the rain, everyone could hear Gaz's every word as the crowd of bystanders fell silent, waiting like vultures for Dib's reaction.

"You made me lose my game!"Gaz seethed, as indignant as if her very life had been staked on it. "If you do that again you really WILL be sorry. And never, NEVER tell me what to do. You will always ask. And keep that big mouth of yours shut all the way home. Your voice makes me sick."

As scattered gasps of admiration for Gaz began to rise here and there, Dib's face burned. Nothing could be more grotesquely humiliating than having such a hypocritical ultimatum held over him before the whole school by his mis-described "little" sister. Not a thing about Gaz was little... nothing, that is, except her small-minded pettiness in leaping on any trivial thing that didn't go the way she wanted.

Gaz was confident that Dib had no choice but to cave in. Her cool order, "You WILL agree," finally shook him loose from his paralysis of shame and horror.

_Anything, anything at all to end this..._ "O - Okay," he croaked out.

"And what else."

_This is a nightmare, it has to be, please let me wake up..._ "I... I'm sorry, Gaz... " he managed.

"Stop mumbling, Dib." Gaz held a hand up behind her ear.

His face grew even hotter. _God oh God anything just get this over with and get me away from it.._. Tensing even more, Dib shut his eyes and took a deep breath before taking this plunge into bottomless mortification. From somewhere far away he heard himself blurt out, "I'msorry!" immediately before the applause and cheering exploded behind him.

At long last Gaz saw fit to step back on the sidewalk.

_(A/N) The next couple of chapters are going to be depressing indeed_ _(well, they're what I'd call depressing), perhaps the grimmest stuff I've done to date, and things won't start to get any better until Chapter Five. So if you'd prefer to read Chapters Three Four and Five together, I'll update quickly._

_A great big thank you to my beta reader for this chapter, thejennamonster._


	3. Why is this happening?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Warning: If you thought the last chapter was bad, this is worse. Violence enters the picture... violence that a few of you might even find disturbing.

Chapter Three: Why is this happening?

"_I can remember, at the age of five, being told that childhood was the happiest period of life. I wept inconsolably, wished I were dead, and wondered how I should endure the years to come." Bertrand Russell_

"_Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell." Francois Mauriac_

"_The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein_

As Gaz moved in menacingly closer to him, Dib suddenly recalled the evening he tried to get a permission slip signed at his father's fanatically guarded studio. As if this wasn't frustrating enough already, Gaz showed up with the sole purpose of viciously betraying and obstructing him every single chance she could find. Had he tried to murder her? No. Had he tried to sell her to slave traders, laced her food with poison? No. Before leaving for the studio he had mistakenly thought she was offering him a slice of pizza.

One single slice of pizza. Gaz never did know when enough was the hell enough...

Dib's relief when Gaz finally stepped in from the sidewalk was short-lived. Pain exploded in his face like a shattering lightbulb, swung into his shin like a club and gored him deep in the stomach. Her more usual reaction offered an even more amusing spectacle to the dispersing crowd, stopping it in its tracks.

"Fight! Fight!" a few of them began chanting, but if the word "fight" describes a two-sided and evenhanded contest, it was woefully inaccurate here. Her physical strength more than a match for that of any boy anywhere near her own age to begin with, Gaz refused to restrain her aggression in the least. What made matters still worse was that she had no regard whatsoever for the concept of fair fighting.

No matter what the provocation, few boys would dare to hit a girl back in front of so many witnesses, and as soon as it became obvious that this one wouldn't either, the laughter began to build...

_At least they've all found something else to watch,_ was Dib's first thought, but when he heard a loud yell of "Hit him again!" right before a particularly vicious punch right drew a fresh burst of delighted guffaws...

_They're laughing at... at THIS?_

To Dib's utter disbelief, the spectators were now reacting as if a boy getting savagely beaten up by a just barely younger girl was the most hysterically funny thing they had ever in their lives seen. Desperate to somehow ease this relentless onslaught, Dib steadily backed up until the chain link fence at the edge of the playground cut off even this retreat. As the blows and kicks now fell even harder, the boy leaned into the rusted wires, wanting only to get away from her, from them, from himself. Gritting his teeth against the sobs tugging at his throat, Dib covered his face and shielded his crotch, bracing to ride out the storm of fists and feet, the stinging waves of applause, and rising above even that, the horrible, heartless laughter.

"YAYY! Grrls kick ass!"

"Oh, she can certainly stand up for herself!"

"She rocks... hardcore!"

"She's cool. She's really cool."

"Wheeee! Look at her go, she takes no shit, no sir!"

With the spectators cheering her on to ensure their own safety, Gaz's assault continued without mercy, drawing no line between healthy assertiveness and just plain bullying. Even boxing, the most aggressive sport of all, clearly forbids striking a fallen opponent, but as Dib finally collapsed onto the sidewalk, Gaz concluded her assault with a final, particularly brutal kick.

It worked. For once Dib kept his mouth shut all the way home. Once inside, Gaz once more took out her GameSlave from her pocket; at the sight of the familiar start up screen, so totally did she forget such trifles as wet hair and clothes that they may as well have dried instantly. Gaz took her seat on the living room couch, settling in comfortably for another game, and if THIS one got interrupted too he'd really be in for it.

X X X X X X

Dib would afterwards never completely recall how he made it home. Even though it was barely three thirty when he closed the front door behind him, all he wanted to do next was lock the door of his own room safely behind him and go to bed. But before he could make it as far as the stairs, the events of the afternoon caught up with him and he knew he'd have to sit down somewhere in a hurry.

He made for the kitchen instead and just as he grabbed for the edge of the kitchen table his knees buckled, dumping him exhausted over the closest chair to slump in abject misery.

Usually the first thing Dib did after skool, whenever he wasn't running out to stop Zim from destroying something, was head straight for his computer for a video conference with one or another of the Swollen Eyeballs, preferably Darkbootie. Even through the identity cloaking screens, Darkbootie could usually tell when something was bothering him, and Dib nearly always logged off feeling much better than he had when he logged on. Today, however, Dib didn't trust his voice to remain steady long enough for a conversation with anybody.

At some point the hover screen floated into view and the Professor cheerfully offered a few quick platitudes about things looking brighter in the morning before the image blinked off again without seeming to notice that Dib had spoken not a single word.

Even as he reassured himself that it was finally over, Dib kept insisting that none of it had happened. He could not stop shivering... but each time he braced to stand up, his soaked clothing gripped tighter, tugging icy chains across his bruises.

His mother would have... Dib drove away all such thoughts; it was no comfort now to recall how she would drop anything else whenever she saw him this upset. That was then and this was now, and now he had to take care of himself. Of himself and Gaz...

Oh. Sure. He had saved Gaz from being hit by a car. But her typically watching nothing but her GameSlave would force him to continue watching cars for her... meaning that it was only a matter of time until this all happened again. Watching out for Gaz _really_ meant watching out for Gaz turning against you...

Okay, so they still didn't realize why he had a problem with Zim... but what in the world had what Gaz done to him look like? What made that okay?

It wasn't the first time she'd savaged him over a game, and it was far from the first time he warned her of danger, but what was new was her blackmailing and brutalizing him in public... and to his unbounded disbelief... she got praised for doing so! No, indeed, Gaz would never be caught dead taking any shit... but was it really all that difficult for people to tell someone who "takes no shit" from someone needlessly GIVING it?

Books and movies made sure you knew who were the bad guys. Cowards all, they preferred to attack in swarms, and any who did work alone invariably chose someone to beat up who was unable to hit back.

Only upon noticing a meaty, coppery smell did he notice the pool of watery blood spreading across the kitchen table. Abruptly the boy snapped his head up to glower furiously at something well beyond the wall. His breaths came faster; something in his stomach began to burn, making his skin and clothes feel even colder. Gritting his teeth sent pain jabbing along his jaw; the clotting blood made it difficult to breathe through his nose.

_So... THIS... is what... they ENJOY... THIS... is what passes... for FUNNY..._

By now Dib was used to being unpopular. He knew he wasn't liked. Gaz didn't have friends either... not like that came as a surprise... and yet it hadn't stopped them from cheering for her! No, something was horribly different about this.

By now, the rainwater was dripping to the floor more slowly. As his clothes tightened around him, Dib received a vivid sensation of shrinking. It was as though he had finished a bath and now wished to climb out, only the sides were soaring beyond his reach as a deepening chill crept into the water. He shivered harder, recognizing the horrible thought slowly sinking into him.

To justify their reaction, they had vilified him. This went beyond mere dislike. This was worse. This... this was...

_Hatred._ A hatred that would at least make some sense if _he'd_ been beating _her _like that...

Pressing his shaking lips together, Dib swallowed noisily. The room blurred but Dib held his shaking breath; no way would he grant them this victory. Besides, his father always told him not to cry.

Pressure filled Dib's head as he dragged in a long, shaky and sodden breath. People he hadn't even met... the very people he was fighting so hard to defend from an alien invasion... hated him. Maybe, just maybe, Zim was right after all; people were just no damned good.

What was the point. What... was... the god... damned... point... of anything any more. As the setting sun continued pulling the warmth out of everything along with the light, Dib felt all sensation of time fall away, as if he had spent his entire life up until now sitting here at this table, and as if he would spend the rest of his life sitting here as well.

X X X X X X

Feeling the first rumble in her stomach, Gaz stirred herself enough to turn toward the stairs and snap, "Well, where's my supper?"

When Dib didn't appear immediately she sprang off the sofa, marched up the stairs and barged right into his room. A second later she came down the stairs howling, "If you know what's good for you, Dib, you'll be in the kitchen making my supper right this second or - "

She snapped on the kitchen light to find Dib sitting at the table, head hanging, shoulders slumped. This time it was a very different kind of space he was staring into; he seemed to be in a trance of some sort. He hadn't even wiped up that mess on the table. Well she sure wasn't going to do it for him!

"HOW DARE YOU TRICK ME!" Gaz shrieked in a tone that never failed to make him cringe. But this time he didn't even budge, let alone flinch. Why was he dragging his feet like that when she wanted supper NOW? Didn't he hear her say she was hungry? He was really asking for it this time.

Preparing to smack him into action, Gaz came closer. "Dib wake up." No response. "DIB." Still nothing. Now standing at his elbow, she drew back a fist, an experimental fist this time. To her astonishment, he still didn't move... other than a flicker somewhere deep in his eyes. Gaz knew then that something was seriously amiss.

"Dib, cut this out. Now." Gaz tried to sound more angry, but she could tell she was dangerously close to saying please.

And still he gave no sign of having heard! Gaz couldn't stand it when anything was outside her control. What if he'd finally lost whatever mind he had to begin with? She would then have to start actually doing her own chores, and more unthinkable yet, his too, instead of enjoying herself on her GameSlave for endless hour after hour.

Briefly Gaz debated with herself. If this didn't work she would set to work and strip his room of every single last scrap of paranormal garbage in it. With nothing else on which to waste his time, Dib's convenient services would surely return.

A few hours, or maybe only a few minutes, later, Dib heard something drop on the table in front of him, followed by a brusque, "Eat."

It was a plate... a plate with an off center microwave sized pizza. The pizza looked soggy around the edges and it was burned in the middle, but he hadn't heated this one, Gaz had. And she was offering it to him.

When it finally happened, it happened when Dib was at his lowest, most vulnerable point... and this tiny gesture stole inside him to tug free what all the pain and humiliation of that afternoon could not. Something which he had been desperately holding back, something hot and jagged, finally buckled inside him. Dib began to cover his face, but to his chagrin he was already crying, crying uncontrollably. The final shreds of his self-respect fell away... but at least this way the sound drowned out Gaz's inevitable "Whiner."

_(A/N) I wouldn't go "Awww!" just yet. No, I have neither lost my mind nor radically altered my definition of the word "love." The next chapter will show what Gaz's rare and fleeting moments of the most basic human decency look like to the recipient. Actually, such unpredictable emotional whipsawing offers anything BUT relief..._


	4. WHO are you today?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

No physical abuse in this chapter, it's all emotional abuse. At least it's short.

Chapter Four: WHO are you today?

"_Sure honey is sweet, but don't be lickin' it off o' thorns!" Irish proverb_

By the following morning, the rain had stopped. Dib awoke in a room flooded with sunlight and with birds singing cheerfully outside the window, to the hope that things would finally start improving for him at home. Yes indeed, maybe so! He felt optimistic, even maybe the beginning of happy, for the first time in a long, long while.

While dressing and collecting his skool books, Dib recalled how the rest of the previous evening had gone. So grateful had be been after Gaz had finally cooked, well, heated up... partially... something for him to eat, that after hastily changing his clothes and cleaning up, he'd cooked her an extra large pizza, one with all her favorite toppings. She didn't say thank you, as usual... but at least this time she didn't gripe at him for what he hadn't put on it!

Dib bounded down the stairs with a big smile on his face, preparing to welcome his new life. Gaz's neutral expression as she ate her breakfast, instead of her more usual sour, "mad at the world" look assured him that things would indeed be different starting now!

Professor Membrane came into view on the hover screen. "See son, didn't I tell you things would look better in the morning? Take care of your little sister until your mother comes home! Brush your teeth and don't steal! Feed the puppy and have fun at skool, daughter! Oops, gotta go, the world needs me to discover something!"

"Bye, Dad! Have a good day!" Dib called after him.

Wanting to talk about what happened the last time they ate together, Dib got as far as, "You know yesterday when - " before Gaz pinned him cold with her usual scowl, almost as if caught in a moment of weakness. The look in her eyes warned him not to speak one more word on the subject, and he backed down, knowing only too well what would happen if he did.

Gaz had chosen cereal for breakfast, and was jealously guarding the box in case she felt like a second bowl. Deciding that asking her to share would definitely be pushing his luck, Dib began looking around for something else.

When, as usual, their father forgot, Dib did the grocery shopping, but he hadn't done much of anything after skool yesterday. This morning he found little else immediately edible but a package of cookies with only six remaining. As Dib was about to ask Gaz if she wanted half, she grabbed the entire half dozen.

"Gaz! I'd be happy to offer you three, but at least - "

Gaz spoke around a mouthful of cereal. "Tell someone who cares, idiot."

"There were only six left, and there's nothing else - "

Gaz suddenly ran out of patience and yanked back a warning fist. Even well outside her reach, Dib still couldn't stop himself from cringing. In fact, when she didn't follow through he actually hated himself even more. He never felt weaker or more cowardly than when he realized he needn't have flinched after all, and what made this petty display of superiority even more degrading was her obvious relish.

As that gloating look once more filled her eyes, another piece of Dib's soul died a shameful death. Turning back to her cereal, Gaz once more summed up the incident with her usual callous sneer. "Whiner!"

So that was it, then. Yesterday had been a mere exception to the ongoing rule of his home life. Nothing had changed, not one single thing. It was enough to make him doubt his own memory of the pizza she had dropped on the table right in front of him twelve hours earlier.

Dib's previous energy now deserted him. He longed only to return to bed and stay there, but he was already dressed, and right at this minute, walking to skool would take a lot less effort than explaining to Gaz why he suddenly wasn't going.

Forcing himself to open a cupboard, Dib saw a bag of oatmeal. He didn't particularly like oatmeal because it always thickened to a cold and gluey mass before he could finish eating it, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more. He slowly began to prepare it.

Gaz poured the last of the cereal into her bowl, added milk and took a spoonful. Deciding she was full, she threw the last of the cereal down the sink and turned on the garbage disposal grinder. She then left the room with the mechanism still going for Dib to turn off, not to mention the empty cereal box and all her cutlery at the table for him to clean up after her.

When Dib finally stirred himself into turning off the garbage disposal, the whir it left in his ears echoed like the laughter that had chased him out of the police station at the end of that long day of ridicule and rejection when he showed those photos of Zim to the officers. They had pretended to believe him... only to stab him in the back with roars of laughter as soon as he seemed out of earshot.

Anything constant can be tuned out; a steady stream of the most bestial cruelty eventually loses its sting. But after even so brief a respite, this return to the usual jolted Dib like a plunge into ice water; it now hit all the harder after he had let his guard down. He now realized as never before exactly how bad his situation really was.

As they headed to skool Dib usually walked exuberant circles around Gaz or hopped eagerly ahead while encouraging her to catch up. Today, however, he silently lagged behind her, shuffling along like an automaton. Although the sun now shone as if it hadn't rained for weeks, Dib now felt exactly as he had the previous day crawling home beneath the chill and wet of the rain.

Dib had always enjoyed watching the sky; just by tilting his face upwards, he could always lift his mood as well. But today he kept his eyes on the ground instead, studying the stones and gravel in the minutest detail to keep anyone from seeing his face and to keep his mind from settling on any one thought.

Dib found himself fighting back the troubling fact that he would eventually find himself forced to face someone who had so obscenely enjoyed his ordeal from yesterday. For the first time Dib was ashamed to be who he was. Perhaps he would finally begin slicking back that distinctive cowlick, maybe even begin wearing a different coat.

After forcing himself through the skool doors and slinking into his classroom, Dib threw himself into his desk and immediately pulled out a book, not to read it this time, but to hide his face behind its covers. _If I make it through today..._ he began thinking, before deciding, _If I'm lucky... I_ won't_ make it through today._

_Go ahead Zim. Do the only useful thing that's ever going to happen on this worthless planet. Exterminate this whole stinking dump full of plague-infected sewer rats and take me along with it. Really, I mean it. I don't want to live any more. Good luck doing it and... and thank you._

_(A/N)It looks bad for Dib, but remember who's writing this. The worst is officially over... and it's going to start getting ZIMMY!_


	5. What is he up to now?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Dib is going to step out of character for a while as far as the show is concerned, but considering what just happened on top of what has been happening, I believe this is not only appropriate but long overdue. Just exactly how much can a 10 or 12 year old child be expected to take?

Chapter Five: What is he up to now?

"_The kisses of a false friend are more hateful than the wounds of an open enemy." John Tillotson_

Zim crouched over the top of his desk, his narrowed eyes closely following his enemy as Dib crossed the room and sat in his desk before taking cover behind a book... pretending the whole while to take no notice of the great ZIM!

Usually the Dib human would have insulted the great ZIM a dozen times by now... he never could keep his mouth cavity shut for long! He was obviously up to something.

"Pitiful hu-uma-an!" Zim baited him. "I laugh at YOU-UU-UUU! AHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Dib did nothing at first. Then he flipped another page! Then he went back to doing nothing.

Zim leaped on top of his desk, throwing out his arms triumphantly with another burst of wildly insane cackling. Victory for ZIM!

But almost immediately he stopped laughing and slowly lowered his arms, frowning. Something was missing. It dulled the sweet taste of Zim's inevitable victory when the Dib monkey was not begging for mercy like the wretched human scum he was!

Zim stared resentfully as the Dib worm continued turning pages, turning them much more slowly than usual. That meant he was thinking... and what was more worth thinking about than Zim's next plan, a plan so brilliant even Zim himself didn't know about it until an hour ago... and still the Dib stink somehow managed to find out about it!

Sneaking, spying humans. You never could trust them. Well, not the Dib human, at least. The other humans at least knew how to mind their own business... like all good subjugated inferior races. Dib was only pretending to do so... treacherous human that he was.

But without Dib's constant needling, Zim actually had time to begin figuring out the one best way to get started carrying out his brilliant plan. This startled him; Zim always just knew the best way immediately! Was he not ZIM? It was impossible for one of the Irken elite look to a mere human for ANYTHING! Zim fought away the idea that Dib was almost filling the place of his commanding officer... this simply could not BE!

When the bell rang for recess, at which Ms. Bitters proclaimed them all doomed to a lifetime of failure from missing ten minutes of class time, Zim headed over to Dib's desk, claiming to gloat in triumph over such an easy victory, but really to bluff Dib into giving away his counter scheme. For all the great victories over this miserable planet which Zim had to his credit, Dib sometimes happened to stumble in from nowhere to end up a factor one way or another in his brilliant plan. This time Zim would simply beat him to it a little earlier than he usually did.

"I know exactly what you are up to, human filth!" Zim taunted. That would certainly trick the Dib into revealing his meddlesome, interfering plan!

Still sitting in his desk as if it wasn't even recess yet, Dib turned over another page.

Whatever the Dib was up to this time, he was somehow holding himself back from blabbing it non stop. Instead, he was just sitting there... turning... pages! A sneak attack! Zim knew the Dib was sneaky, but this was by far the sneakiest thing he had ever done!

"I will rain down doom upon the doom-rained-down-upon heads of the doomed huma-ans!" Zim continued. "ALL OF THE-EE-EEEM!"

Dib sighed... as the pitiful inferior human did whenever he thought he'd won... but was of course WRONG!

"This very afterno-oo-ooon, this building around us and all the inferior humans in it will CEASE to be! Watch me and you will se-ee-eee!"

Dib seemed to... smile?

What was stopping the Dib from leaping out of his desk in his usual pitiful attempt to stop Zim... or at least making an even bigger FOOL of himself than he already was? All he did was just flip another page... as if Zim wasn't even there!

"Stop doing... stop doing that... all that... that... NOTHING you are not doing!" Zim suddenly shrieked in frustration, then just as abruptly caught himself and turned his back to stalk away.

"I grow bored with you human. I leave you now to - !"

But Zim's parting taunt was somewhat compromised when he fell flat on his face.

X X X X X X

At the start of recess, instead of springing up for ten minutes of deadly combat, Dib had simply taken out another book, listlessly letting his backpack fall to the floor. As Zim turned to stalk away from Dib's desk in feigned triumph, his foot became entangled in the straps and down he tumbled.

In spite of himself Dib felt a grin tug at his mouth. A second later than he usually would have, Dib muttered, "Enjoy your trip, spaceboy?"

It wasn't much of a joke, but at that point, not much is all it would have taken to make Dib feel a bit better.

Zim scrambled after what was left of his dignity. "Your filthy planet is so far beneath the notice of Zi-ii-iim that I merely stubbed my toe and tripped over it. No more than that, human pig stink!"

"Oh really? Are you sure you weren't outmatched by such advanced earth technology as this?" Dib reached down for the scuffed backpack and held it up, its straps dangling limply.

"That would look advanced only to you inferior humans!" Zim scoffed.

"It was still advanced enough to trip YOU!" Dib shot back. Now that yet another argument with Zim had already started, Dib found all the old familiar lines springing to his lips without his even having to think about what to say next.

An even handed exchange... this was more like it! As recess ended, forcing Zim to head back to his desk, Dib realized he actually felt a bit better. The more desperately he had tried to push thoughts of yesterday out of his mind, the more persistent they became. As of now, however, he hadn't thought about it for nearly ten minutes.

X X X X X X

Where the earlier part of the morning had dragged on endlessly, Dib now became totally preoccupied with wondering what Zim's plan was. Before he knew it, the lunch bell was ringing and Ms. Bitters was dismissing the class by telling them they were all doomed to die slow, agonizing deaths from food poisoning.

As the pupil seated closest to the door, Zim wasted not a second in slipping out of the room as soon as the bell started ringing. Dib, who had been keeping his eye closely on him the whole time since recess, noticed him go and darted after him before any of the other children had even moved.

When a suicidally depressed person's mood begins to lift, this gives them enough energy to act on any lingering self destructive urges. This is actually the time of greatest danger, and where Dib now found himself.

Dib stuck close to the wall, following Zim as closely as he dared without risking Zim seeing him. If that happened, Zim would most likely lead him the wrong way or waste time bickering instead of getting straight to the business at hand, which was blowing up the skool. Dib wanted to make sure Zim was actually doing what he said he would do, instead of simply distracting him with misinformation and getting his hopes up for nothing. The sooner Zim did what he said he was going to do, the better off Dib would be.

Noticing that Zim frequently checked his progress against a piece of paper, Dib squinted, trying to somehow distinguish what was on this paper and figure out Zim's destination so he could beat him to it.

Actually, it was a diagram of the skool's heating system, which Zim had swiped from the custodian's room the previous day after sending Dib to the nurse's office with the ruler in his nose. He now had such a brilliant plan it had taken him a long time to come up with it, all night in fact.

Zim was well aware Dib was chasing him, and managed to keep his gloating to himself. It was working! Of all the worthless humans who would soon be blown sky high, that Dib human would lead the way! No more Dib to think he could tell ZIM what to do!

Eventually, Zim deciphered the diagram enough to find the furnace room, cleverly hidden behind the door with the words "Furnace Room; Keep Out" stenciled on it. With a final furtive look around, Zim pried the latch off the door with the tip of one his spider legs and went inside. Dib followed, watching closely from the edge of the door.

Small, dusty and built out of cinderblocks, the furnace room was like a time capsule. Little was immediately visible other than one of those antique oil burning furnaces. In the dim light, one could in one corner distinguish the only objects to be ventured past the door in at least fifty years, an accumulation of empty beer bottles representing various decades, and magazines that were dirty in more ways than one.

Narrow as this room was, it had a high ceiling. Zim unfolded all his spider legs, reached over the furnace and opened the window directly above it, a window no child could reach without a great deal of help from a tall adult. Zim crouched low with his spider legs, apparently to make a leap for safety as soon as he had set events in motion. _Yeah, why not. In a few minutes, nothing will matter to me any more,_ thought Dib.

After quickly enough locating the fuel intake pipe of the furnace, Zim easily pried off the lock and removed the lid. As Zim reached into his pocket, Dib peered closely. The alien took out a lighter.

A primitive, inferior earth lighter, nowhere near as powerful as superior Irken weapons. But by firing at the furnace with his laser gun, Zim would be caught in the immediate explosion. So amazing was the great Zim that he could even annihilate himself! But part of his very amazingness was knowing when primitive inferior earth objects would actually better serve the amazing plans of ZIM! Moreover Gir had misplaced the laser gun while playing cowboy.

_So far, so good, _thought Dib. But instead of rolling up the map, lighting it and dropping it down the pipe, Zim threw it over his shoulder before he began flicking the lighter.

Dib shook his head with dismay and disbelief; was Zim preparing to just drop the lighter down the fuel intake tube? After all this time, did he still not know that the fire in earth lighters went out as soon as you dropped them?

Dib stepped out of hiding before Zim could lose the lighter forever down the tube. "You'll never do it that way! Here, let me... "

"Get away foolish human! Come any closer and I will explode you and this whole skool! As a matter of fact, that is what I will do anyway!" Zim let loose another threatening evil laugh.

"Not that way you won't. Here's what you need," said Dib, pulling from his pocket a notebook and tearing out several pages, pages which he had so painstakingly filled with notes, none of which mattered any more.

This was the last thing Zim expected. He nimbly skittered aside, one spider leg holding the lighter well out of Dib's reach. "Stay away, or I will hurt you!"

"Come here, I'm trying to help you!" Dib held out his hand for the lighter.

"NO! The great ZIM needs no help from an inferior human!"

"Don't they have fire on your planet either? What kind of planet has space travel, but not fire? We humans have been using fire ever since we lived in CAVES!"

"No inferior human can possibly trick one of the Irken elite!"

"Who's trying to trick anybody? Let's just get this over with. You want to blow up the skool, and I want you to blow up the skool. So where's the problem?"

What Zim was already certain of, he was even more certain of now... that Dib actually dared to think he could possibly trick him. Why else would he say something like this? Zim gritted his zipper teeth. "Fool human! You cannot hope to stop ZIM!"

"I'm not trying to 'stop' anybody! You just crumple the paper in a ball and set it on fire before dropping it in!"

In alarm Zim grabbed up the fallen map and tore it to shreds. Whatever devious double crossing trick the Dib was up to, it somehow involved paper. "Zim needs no help! Zim can do it himself!"

"Yeah, 'Zim" almost lost his only chance, unless 'Zim' has another lighter somewhere, which I doubt. Give me that!'

Zim continued to hold the lighter high overhead. "Aha! First you planted the wrong diagram and then you deliberately chased the great Zim down the wrong corridor! I knew I would figure out your stupid inferior human plan! Zim knows a-aa-aaall!"

Rolling his eyes in frustration, Dib threw out his hands to indicate the whole room. "Yes. Yes, I did all that and then I built this dummy furnace room overnight just for you, don't forget that."

By now, Zim's fury wouldn't allow him to see even Dib's sarcasm. "I knew it! I am leaving here now. This cannot possibly be the oil tank! Not if you WANT Zim to light it."

Dib held up both hands for the lighter. "Zim. Give me the lighter. I'll do it myself. I'll blow myself up. You're happy. I'm happy."

Zim put the lighter behind his back so Dib could no longer see it, a move which actually brought it closer to his enemy. "Zim knows everything, human. You cannot hope to trick the great Zim!"

"Nobody! Is trying! To 'trick' you!" Dib shook with frustration. "I can't wait to see this miserable place blown sky high!"

"You LIE! You do not want that to happen!"

"No I'm not and yes I do! Now gimme that... " Dib threw himself so hard against one of Zim's spider legs that Zim lost his balance, landing heavily on Dib as they both fell to the floor.

"NOOOO!" screamed Zim, as Dib reached after the lighter.

_Of all the times for Zim to suddenly decide not to blow up something, _Dib thought grimly._ This is just like my luck._

Zim fought to keep the lighter away from Dib as they both climbed to their feet."One would think that a head as big as yours would - "

"My head's not big!" screamed Dib in outrage, the strongest feeling he'd allowed himself in quite some time, a strong feeling which somehow helped him feel stronger. He swung a surly punch which glanced off Zim's chin as the alien dodged aside.

The lighter fell to the floor, forgotten. Zim pulled in all his spider legs and stood still to face Dib. He thought the Dib could hit harder than this... and the great ZIM was never, ever wrong! "Hit me, human. Go on... hit me as hard as you can."

Dib paused just long enough to collect the rage and frustration of the previous day. This time as his fist connected solidly with Zim's chin, relief burst out and flooded all through his body. Zim's look of surprise lasted only for a moment before he did exactly what Dib could have expected; he punched Dib right back in the nose.

Instantly Dib returned the punch, with more force behind it this time. Just being free to do so dulled the pain of this fresh pummeling on yesterday's bruises. _At least now there's no... gawking... JERKS...!_

Once more Zim's fist slammed into him, so hard this time he gasped, but with his next turn Dib found he felt still stronger. Yes, his power was returning! _At last... somebody who I CAN hit back!_

Zim's next punch sent Dib staggering against the wall; he recovered and hurled himself at Zim, with still more force. As Dib prepared to block him, Zim drew back a fist for an especially fierce punch, but just then...

"What's going on in there?" called the voice of an old man, not right at the door of the furnace room yet, but getting closer with every second. Both Dib and Zim froze, hands at each other's throats.

"Nothing," they shouted, together, looking around madly for a way out. This was something between themselves alone.

Zim had forgotten all about the window, but having studied the diagram, was able to quickly locate the back door on the other side of the room. He raised no objections to Dib following closely after him; he wanted no other human to interfere. This victory Zim wanted for himself.

That Zim left the door open for him, instead of suddenly turning to close and lock the door in his face to walk away leaving him to contend with the custodian's wrath, surprised Dib more than a little. That the alien still had every intention of finishing him off was beyond question... but making sure to do so away from the staring eyes of someone who would doubtless find his pain in and of itself knee-slappingly funny counted in Dib's mind as fair fighting.

X X X X X X

Dib and Zim kept a wary eye on each other all the way back to the cafeteria, past just a few kids and teachers still trickling through the halls.

Dib hoped against hope that just this once Zim would keep his mouth shut, since somehow, something about somebody hurting him struck this herd of death-wishing ingrates as the most hilarious, side-splitting spectacle ever.

And for his part, Zim was just as fervently hoping that this one time the Dib would refrain from shouting to the whole planet what just happened. He was pretty sure that trying to blow up the skool had to be worth at least a couple of days's worth of detention. To keep proving how normal he was, the amazing Zim would have little choice but to submit to this most pointless and stupid of all human rituals... and in case any doubt remained, remember to shout at regular intervals, loud enough for the whole skool to hear, "I'm NORMAL! Completely NORMAL!"

By the time they arrived back at the cafeteria and loaded their trays with grilled rice and poached oats, most of the kids were just finishing off their lunch. As Dib and Zim headed for a table at which he could actually sit, somebody with their volume turned down hissed, "Get out of the road!" just before the entire table erupted in giggles.

Dib had known it would happen sooner or later, of course. But the reality turned out to be so far below what he had been dreading that Dib now slowed a bit, frowning ever so slightly as he asked himself aloud just why he'd been dreading something so trivial. He didn't even notice everyone at the table lose interest when the frantically defensive reaction they had come to expect didn't burst out immediately; indeed, he didn't react at all when someone else repeated the taunt, louder this time. The giggles trailed off, the entire table one by one turning back to their lunches. Dib shrugged and continued on his way.

As usual, nobody else was willing to have Dib sit next to them, but this time he didn't care. He simply headed for the only table at which he could sit.

Gaz was just finishing up her lunch. She smirked when she noticed him bleeding again. Dib couldn't help smirking back; this time not all of the blood was his! Only now, after actually delivering a vigorous pounding of his own, could Dib realize that it was choice, not helplessness or cowardice, that had stopped him from returning Gaz's assault.

His appetite fully restored, Dib so eagerly gobbled his lunch that he didn't even bother talking; his loud slurps and gulps, however, more than made up for it. Gaz snarled at him a couple of times to shut up before realizing that he wasn't even talking to begin with. Rather than look any more powerless than she did already, Gaz got up and left the table to go outside.

Left in peace, Dib wiped his mouth before turning his full attention right back on Zim. _Don't tell on me, and I won't tell on you,_ Dib silently promised.

Zim countered the vow._ If you tell what I did, I will tell what you did wretched filthy human scu-uu-uuum!_

It is hard to say who was more surprised when the other remained so untypically tongue-tied; the silence stretched between them for what remained of the lunch hour. This fight was far from over; it would go on for as long as it had to.

Only when they were back in class, drearily reciting something Dib already knew by heart, did it dawn on him like an atomic explosion what had just happened. Both his fists slammed to the desk so hard that all eyes in the room turned to stare at him. "You're still doomed," said Ms. Bitters, not even pausing as she wrote that night's math homework on the board. "And for that little disruption, Dib, you are doomed to do this twice."

_So forty minutes instead of twenty? Big deal._

When Zim tried to blow up the skool, he, Dib, had not only tried to help him, he'd given him... instructions! To say Dib had not been himself, let alone thinking clearly, was a gross understatement.

Fortunately, Zim had so mistrusted Dib's instructions that he tore up and threw away the very item Dib told him he needed. But to be on the safe side, Dib would now keep an even closer eye on the alien than ever before... just in case.

When the bell rang that afternoon Ms. Bitters dismissed the class with the prediction they were all doomed to develop skin cancer from all that sunshine out there. Zim was the first one outside, screaming that he was even more normal than he had been the day before.

Usually, Dib was fidgeting uncontrollably after ten seconds of waiting for Gaz. Today, however, watching the serene, orderly traffic flow helped him to remain patient for nearly a whole minute. Buses and minivans pulled up to the skool and departed one by one as if the building and all its occupants had never been in danger of being blown up only hours earlier. If any of the kids pointed and laughed as they ran by, Dib didn't even notice. No longer completely at their mercy, he felt a welcome measure of control over his life once more.

Suddenly Dib realized that even had he never followed Zim at lunchtime, the skool would still be standing and all of this would still be happening. Other parents would still be picking up other children in other cars; other kids would still be working out deals with their siblings to the satisfaction of both sides. Dib had no idea why he felt more relief than shame as he recalled what he would have actually done had Zim not resisted. He only knew that he felt better about himself than he had felt for some time.

It is true, but only up to a point, that adversity strengthens one. It is the struggle against hardship, not the suffering of it, that makes one stronger. Being constantly beaten down while having no opportunity to defend oneself would crack the spirit and drain the strength of any but a titan. The opponent who did offer Dib this invaluable opportunity to fight back was Zim, the jade-colored, jabbering monster from outer space.

When Gaz finally show up, Dib breathed an audible sigh of relief to see that she had her GameSlave in her pocket instead of her hand. Moreover, for some reason she seemed to be in an unusual hurry to get home, which suited Dib just fine. He had an alien to watch.

_(A/N) Nope, this is not over yet. More to come!_

_I want to thank my beta readers thejennamonster and Maran Zelde for their assistance and feedback._


	6. Who's your name?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Chapter Six: Who's your name?

_Quote: "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." Samuel Goldwyn_

"Oh, and Darkbootie? I do feel lots better now... thanks! Mothman out!" Good old Darkbootie... nothing could delete a "bad day" file like a talk with him!

After logging out and turning off his computer, Dib began stuffing his backpack with the final selection from his considerable armory of alien recording and capture equipment. Halfway through reviewing his list of plans and back up plans, he remembered that he couldn't put off the grocery shopping any longer. And before doing that, he'd better go to the bathroom.

Closing the door to his room behind him, Dib called out, "Hey, Gaz? I'm going out for some groceries. You want anything in particular? I mean, besides lots of pizza!"

Gaz began to climb the stairs... and she was looking very pissed off. That alone didn't tell him much; she looked pissed off for most of her waking hours, and for all Dib knew even when she was asleep. Still, whenever he saw her sneering face coming towards him, Dib frequently wondered how close he was to the nearest exit.

"What I need... is more BATTERIES... DIB," she said, her voice tense with impatience and contempt, as if it was somehow his fault that her own incessant playing had drained them. So that was why she'd been in such a hurry to get home and hadn't been playing her GameSlave the whole way.

Right before Dib reached the bathroom, Gaz cut him off and stepped inside. That she didn't close the door was of no help to him. She just stood before the mirror, leisurely cutting her nails.

"Gaz? If you don't mind, I really need to get in there, please, just for a minute."

"No."

"Please?"

She didn't look up from her nails. "Whiner."

"Please, Gaz, I need to go! If you do, I'll get you extra batteries!"

She allowed a withering glace to drift down over him. "Yes, Dib, get batteries. That's just what I said for you to do."

"I mean extra ones."

"I can use only one set at a time, idiot."

"I... I-I mean spare ones... so you won't run low on batteries like you just did. Please, just for thirty seconds."

A smirk playing in one corner of Gaz's mouth was the only indication that she even heard him.

"Gaz, I'll only be a few seconds and then you'll have the whole bathroom to yourself for as long as you want when I leave for the supermarket. Hey, I'll even buy an extra large bag of chips... pizza flavored chips... all for you! Pretty good deal, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, that's a very good idea, Dib. You do that." This time Gaz didn't even deign to glance at him.

Finally she reached the last nail, and took her time snipping it to just the right shape before putting away the nail clippers. At last! Just as Dib breathed a sigh of relief, Gaz turned around to lean over the bathtub. She bothered with such things as baths only when her GameSlave's batteries were running low.

"Um, Gaz...!"

Gaz now ignored him completely. Water began splashing into the tub, and when she started running the water full force, Dib knew he'd better leave NOW.

Dib shut the front door behind him and headed away. He knew that total strangers ahead of him in the grocery store's bathroom would be less deliberately stubborn than this. Once again she pointlessly refused what he wanted, a mere minute's worth of cooperation... even as she grabbed eagerly enough after what he had offered in return. Didn't Gaz know what a deal even WAS?

At this thought, Dib suddenly stopped in midstep. Perhaps GAZ was the one with the problem? He'd done all the right things, or at least he'd done exactly what he'd seen his classmates doing at lunch the previous day... and it had sure worked for all of them! Unfortunately, no matter how cooperative you were willing to be, working out a deal was not something that you could do alone. At least now he wouldn't constantly feel like a failure without even knowing what he was doing wrong... not that actual day to day life with her would suddenly get any easier, of course.

As always, Dib took the route that would lead him past Zim's house, just to see what that alien was up to this time. He began to walk more quickly. Dib didn't need to go badly enough to keep an eye out for a signpost or something in a quiet corner, but he was getting rather uncomfortable just the same.

X X X X X X

At about the same time, Zim was beaming. "Well, I must say, Zim, your job performance certainly is, uh, unique," Tallest Red praised him, as Purple kept stuffing handful after handful of corn chips into his mouth to keep himself from laughing.

"I knew it! The mighty ZIM will get a promotion!"

"This special project WAS your promotion," Red explained hastily, as Purple began to choke.

"Of course it was," Zim preened. "Zim deserved it."

"In fact, we empower you to carry on the rest of your mission with minimum supervision," Red continued, emphasizing the last two words.

"I knew my genius would one day be recognized! The mighty ZIM is SO mighty, he can even give orders to HIMSELF!"

Purple now began to turn pink, he was choking so badly.

"All hail Zim." Red began to slap Purple on the back, a little harder than strictly necessary.

"Hail! Hail! Hail!" cried Zim, supervising the chant even as he was making it. Only Zim could do that... because he was ZIM!

Finally Red gave Zim one last order. "Go destroy the most bothersome human," just as Purple finished coughing up the last of the corn chips. Not to be outdone, with the next breath he took Purple gasped, "Destroy the next human you see."

The Tallests would have got into an argument over it, had Zim not replied, "Of course I can do both at the same time... I am ZI-II-IIIM!"

"Oh and Zim? We won't supervise. Surprise us," suggested Red. With a final salute, Zim shut off the view screen right before the Tallests could contain their laughter no longer.

Zim rode the elevator to the groundto the ground floor. No sooner had the doors opened than through the window Zim caught sight of Dib approaching.

He rubbed his hands together. "Gir! Fetch me my laser gun! And this time make sure you CAN find it!"

Gir went away obediently enough, but almost immediately came back empty handed.

"Well? Where is the laser gun, Gir?"

Gir giggled. "It wouldn't come when I called it, Master!"

A few days earlier, Gir had been watching a cowboy movie on TV and decided to jump on the arm of the couch to play cowboy too. Noticing that the cowboys all had handguns, Gir first ran for Zim's laser gun to get even further into the spirit of this exciting movie. When Gir got back to the TV, the cowboys were hiding to ambush some rustlers, so Gir went and hid too.

Consequently Gir never learned what happened next in the movie, which might have reminded him where he'd been hiding when he misplaced the laser gun.

Now, not even Zim's most dire threats could jog Gir's memory. Thinking it was all a game, Gir just laughed and said that would sound like fun. Gir took nothing seriously at the best of times, and of course, you can't kill a robot.

"Gir you are my sla-aa-aaave so that means that you will OBE-EE-EEEY! Now go and LOOK for the laser gun and bring it to the amazing ZIM!"

"Of course, Master! Where is it?"

Zim didn't know whether to jump or stomp with frustration so he ended up doing something in between. As it just so happened this time, the next human he saw WAS the most bothersome... and just as the Dib, the nextest AND bothersomest of all the inferior stinking humans was getting easier and easier to hit with each passing second, the great ZIM was without his laser gun! "Gir! Go and bring the great ZIM'S laser gun this very nanoseco-ond!"

"Okay, master, I'll obey... after you dance for me some more!"

Zim groaned. Where had that come from? From the same place as all of Gir's other nonsensical ideas, of course. Grumbling that he was glad that nobody could see him now, Zim began to skip around awkwardly.

Gir immediately began clapping. "Master you must be the best dancer in the universe!"

Zim's dance accordingly took on a much livelier tempo. "Of course I am the best dancer in the universe. I am ZIM!"

Gir's enthusiastic applause kept Zim dancing for far longer than he'd originally planned. When Zim finally had to stop and catch his breath, Gir told him that during the dance he had remembered where the laser gun was, but by the time Zim stopped dancing, he'd forgotten again.

"Well keep looking!" Zim ordered, panting. "I danced for you... so you owe that to ME-EE-EEE!"

Now that he was working with minimum supervision, Zim gave himself an order to take the toilet back to the view screen to keep the Tallest up to the minute on how Zim's brilliant plan to destroy the most bothersome human (which also happened to be the first one he saw) was proceeding right on schedule.

X X X X X X

As he approached the tall green and purple house surrounded by the laser-equipped lawn gnomes, Dib picked up speed, bracing to march into battle, perhaps pick up where they had had to leave it off at lunchtime. Suddenly he crouched behind the fence to peer intently over it. The door was... OPENING?

But that wasn't Zim coming out right before the door sighed shut to click locked. It was... it was a robot?

Anyone else would have seen the robot just picking flowers. But Dib was so used to receiving the most dire threats and brutal violence from the very sort of person regarded as sweet, helpless and innocent, that even if this robot hadn't come from Zim's base he would still conclude the robot had to be a weapon of some sort. Doubtless this was a spybot, slyly surveying the neighborhood even as it pretended to merely sniff the flowers.

Dib's eyes narrowed. _Another deadly space weapon of his! After that laser, I don't dare imagine what _this_ piece of machinery can do!_

Seeing the robot's head begin to turn, Dib hastily ducked.

_Did it spot me? What's my best defense? Should I make a run for it? That thing can't miss at this range! If I run I can't observe this thing but how much can I observe if I'm dead...?_

Indeed, Dib had not been quite quick enough to escape Gir catching sight of the trailing end of his hair scythe. Intrigued, the robot began heading for the fence.

Before setting out, Dib had selected, rejected, pondered, and re-selected so many items that he was no longer quite sure what his backpack even contained. Crouching now on the sidewalk, Dib shipped off his backpack and began frantically sorting through his vast array of equipment. Not knowing the true nature of this new threat didn't make selecting an appropriate device any easier.

Gir toddled up to the fence and peered over it. Feeling a presence staring at him, Dib suddenly looked up... into a pair of the most twinkly sky blue discs he'd ever seen.

The discs stared back.

Dib froze, expecting the worst, and then something worse than that again, but he was nowhere near ready for what came from this robot.

"Hello I'm Gir!" blared a tinny voice. "Who's your name?"

Dib, his weapons arranged all around him, had still been trying to select one. So surprised was he to still be alive, his brain went into autopilot. After three tries at it, the words finally came out. "D... D... Dib... Eat?"

Dib had yet to see the robot that could do such a thing, but panicky with dread, he now numbly pointed to his mouth. All that the primitive core of his mind could think of was to appease this being with food long enough to escape. Usually he carried around in his pocket a candy bar or something in case the pizza, microwaved products and Chinese food he usually ate left him hungry too far ahead of the next meal.

But all he found in his pocket this time was a few pieces of chocolate bubble gum. He offered them gingerly with a wide, nervous grin, hoping this being wouldn't disintegrate him... or whatever it did...for so paltry a bribe.

But instead, Gir did something Dib would never forget. The robot immediately danced and giggled with glee before darting around the fence for the gum. Even before taking what Dib was offering, the robot spread its arms out to him. One more surge of paranoid terror shot through Dib... but all the robot actually did was hug him briefly and coo,"I lurve you, D-d-dibby."

Only then did the robot take the gum, and the weirdest sensation washed over Dib, a feeling so foreign he couldn't even tell if it was joy or sadness.

Gir sat down right on the sidewalk and began to blow bubbles, pointing out its efforts to Dib and showing him how good it could blow bubbles. At one point the wad of gum blew right out of Gir's mouth; giggling, the robot picked up the gum and stuffed it back in its mouth to try again. Laughing made this still more difficult. The gum fell out again and Gir laughed even harder.

Dib started to smile, but immediately found himself choking up for no reason he could put his finger on. When something Gaz was doing didn't go the way she wanted it to go, she...

Noticing the look on Dib's face, Gir began to look sad too, stopped blowing bubbles, and offered him the gum back. "Whassa matter, Dibby?"

This made Dib even sadder. If Gaz ever even noticed he was unhappy, she certainly never gave a damn; more often than not it was she who was doing her utmost to make him feel bad in the first place. The one and only time she had actually done something for him, she had gone right back to her usual behavior almost immediately, dashing his hopes to pieces.

"No, thanks, Grr," Dib smiled. "That's your gum. You enjoy it. I've got some more for later."

"Sure, Dibby?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Grr. I'm okay. You just enjoy your bubble gum."

"YAYYYY GUM!" The robot danced over to give Dib another hug as if he had just held out a fresh and even bigger piece of gum, before sitting down to resume trying to blow a bubble. When the gum fell on the sidewalk yet again, the robot merely giggled and picked it up again.

It took Dib at least ten more minutes just to identify what he was seeing. This was how little sisters acted. Other people's little sisters, that is. Not his. Never his.

He was expected to defend Gaz as if she was, Dib caught himself thinking, a sister... whatever the consequences to himself, and as an even bigger slap in the face, in spite of the abominable way she treated him. Had a car headed straight at Gaz as she stood out in the middle of the road the day before, he would feel like a murderer unless he moved her out of harm's way... even if it meant throwing his own body beneath the wheels.

_I saved her life, just as I was supposed to do... but where does it say one gets beaten up for that?_

Dib reflected that it said much about Gaz, none of it complimentary, that a ROBOT was more agreeable than she was.

Gir stood up, staring at Dib and breaking him out of his reverie. "I hope you don't mind my asking you this," Dib began, "but are you a boy or a girl?" (When asked that question Zim had glared indignantly into Dib's eyes and retorted, "What are YO-OO-OOU?")

Gir thought hard, then shrugged. "I don't know."

"I mean, do people call you a he or a she?"

"They call me Gir! Gir, Gir Gir, Gir Gir, Gir... " the robot began to sing the doom song, only this time substituting the name Gir for the lyrics.

"Where's your gum, Gir?" Dib asked.

"I swallowed-ed it."

"I'll see if I have any more." When a search through all his pockets proved fruitless, sheer force of habit forced Dib to wince. "Sorry... just don't laser me, all right?"

The robot giggled as if it knew a secret. "The laser gun's losted. I'm out here looking for it."

"Oh, it is? Let's look together."

Gir clapped. "Yay!"

While Dib could not resist the opportunity to take a quick look around for the laser gun, at the same time he had no wish to get Gir in trouble with his arch enemy. This robot not only seemed animate enough, it even embodied the more pleasant features of a younger sibling. He wasn't sure if Zim would be angrier if they had just started looking for the gun, or it if had been lost for some time. "How long was the laser gun missing?"

"Ohhhh... this long." The robot held up its hands about as far apart as Dib remembered the gun as being... plus at least three additional inches.

"No, I mean, how long was it missing?" Dib emphasized the final word.

"It don't miss!" Gir assured him. "Unless you point it wrong."

Dib tried once more. "When did it get lost?"

"When the cowboys hided!"

Hoping for a reply he COULD understand, Dib next asked, "So, when did the cowboys hide?"

"After they 'cided to catch the rus'ers!"

"Was that yesterday, or was it last week?"

Gir squinted as if thinking. "Right after 'Teletubbies'!"

Dib decided to try a different line of questioning.

"Er... What'll Zim do if you don't find it, Grr?"

"This!" Gir began to dance joyously.

After a moment of blankness, Dib shook his head. He must have missed something somewhere. At any rate, the conversation had not enlightened him in the least.

They hunted and hunted, Gir looking inside the fence and Dib looking outside. Finally Dib asked, "It's not out here. Where's a good place to look next?"

"It's indoors."

"Indoors? Then why are we looking out here?"

"'Cause it's nice and sunny outside! WHEEE!" Gir looked up at the sky and began to spin around.

That was a very old joke, and not an especially funny one at that, but something in the way Gir said it hit Dib's funny bone at just the right angle. Dib didn't get to laugh very often, and now it felt great.

"Well, we won't find it out here, then," Dib said suddenly, forcing himself to stop laughing. He still wasn't entirely sure there would be no further repercussions for Gir and in view of that, didn't feel too bad about calling off the search. He could see no immediate danger, and after that chuckle needed to get to the grocery store's bathroom fast. "It's been nice knowing you, Grr, but right now, I have to go. I'll be sure to come back here and play with you some other day, though. Maybe we'll even find that laser gun!"

Gir looked up from the interesting looking rock. "Ohyah, laser gun. I gotta look for it." Gir came over and reached up to whisper in Dib's ear.

"Don't tell Master I was out without my secret disguise. It's a green dog, but I can't tell you that because it's a secret."

"Aha," Dib smiled and shook his head. Something else suddenly made sense. "Don't worry, Grr, your secret is safe with me. After all, we're friends."

The robot closed its eyes, nodded, and smiled. "Friends."

"And I'll bring some more chocolate bubble gum for you next time!"

"YAYYYY Chocolate bubble gum!"

Dib was about to turn and continue on his way to the grocery store and Gir was about to go back inside and look for the laser gun (unless distracted by something between the gate and the door), when suddenly an all too familiar voice rose above everything else.

"Dib."

Dib's head whipped around. Leaving smoldering cinders in her footprints, Gaz was stomping up the sidewalk toward him because he hadn't come back fast from the grocery store with her pizza and batteries fast enough to suit her.

Dib's stomach fell through the sidewalk. _Oh dear God. No... NO..._

_(A/N) I know Gir is usually referred to as a "he," but Dib has been wondering what it would be like to actually have a sister... and aren't robots gender neutral?_

_Every time I came here in search of a fic I could actually read I would go away wondering, but it's good to see some still know how to react to the idea of an 11 year old child being brutally beaten up._


	7. Who laughs last

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Chapter Seven: Who Laughs Last...

"_Who laughs last, laughs best!" Just about everybody_

Gaz came stomping right up to them, GameSlave in one hand. By the look on her face, if the batteries weren't dead already, they were close to it.

"I might have known I'd find you here, Dib." Gaz gritted out, her eyes narrowing to malevolent slits as she cracked her knuckles. With yesterday's beating all too fresh both in his mind and on his body, Dib couldn't help flinching.

Gir's eyes glowed red as the robot began bristling with weapons. This person wasthreatening Gir's new friend Dibby! Gir darted towards Gaz with no thought of being intimidated, but Dib immediately reached out and stopped the robot.

Survivors of Gaz's wrath afterwards recalled having seen images such as skulls, unhappy faces, churning pools of molten lava flashing in her eyes; this time Dib saw the fires of hell itself. Dib shrank back, pulling Gir with him, before she could grab either of them to fling in the flames.

"Put away your weapons, Grr" said Dib tightly, still not taking his eyes off of Gaz. "It's okay. That's Gaz. She's my sister."

If Dib wouldn't let anything hurt Gaz because she was his sister, then surely that would also mean Dib had nothing to fear from Gaz either! Gir turned to Gaz with a bright smile... a smile which quickly faded.

Such thankless concern for the safety of the very person who so terrorized Dib himself just plain made no sense at all, not even to Gir. As the robot tried in vain to figure this out, its eyes returned to blue... then went red again, then blue, then red, and finally flickered back and forth between blue and red so rapidly that they looked purple. Gir's circuits were overloading to the point of beginning to overheat.

Next Gaz turned her ferocious glare on Gir, which panicked Dib still more. He had no idea what he would dare to do if the worst happened. When Gaz went to throw something out but found the trash can full, she was as likely to crush it flat (to punish it for daring not to have room for her contribution) as she was to empty it. As much as he dreaded what could result, Dib continued staring, too horribly fascinated to turn away.

But Dib would cherish for as long as he lived the memory of what happened next.

Far from being afraid, Gir merely mimicked her grimace, and as reflected by the robot, this terrifying expression suddenly looked merely petulant, as harmless and amusing as it would look on the face of anybody else's little sister. Dib clapped a hand over his mouth to hold back the eruption of startled laughter.

"What's this Gazzie?" Gir suddenly chirped, snatching the ever present GameSlave out of Gaz's hand.

Breathless now, Dib expected Gaz to burst straight into flames. Only her fingertips trembled; the rest of her remained as still as a statue. Gaz finally broke out of her spell about a half a second later and lunged at Gir. Fortunately Dib was not to be faced with any split second decisions or dilemmas. The little robot sprouted a blue flamed rocket and flew away... leaving Gaz to crash into the sidewalk. _Aha, Grr could fly, so that explained a couple of more things...!_

Shaking with rage, Gaz climbed to her feet, turned and stomped after the robot as Gir flew to one of the lower branches of the nearest tree. Without a care in the world, the little robot sat over the branch and pushed buttons until the game started up, then continued to push more buttons apparently at random until an explosion sounded.

"YAY I win!" the little robot rejoiced, jumping up and down until the leaves at the end of the branch rattled and began falling to the ground. "This is an easy game!"

Gaz clenched all over, going as rigid as if she had tetanus. Dib knew that she knew this game was anything but easy; Gaz had yet to beat it herself even after days of playing. From bitter experience he also knew that that particular sound didn't mean the game's villain had been hit, but that the player was down by another life. Even when she wasn't doing the actual losing herself, the mere idea was anathema to Gaz.

"Give me that game back... right now... and I won't rip off all your limbs." she fumed.

Gir only looked down and laughed. "I like games. I wanta keep this one!" and beeped some more buttons until another explosion signified another player death. "YAYY! I win again!"

Gaz was shaking even harder now; the robot was down to its final avatar and literally playing with its own life.

As Gir continued beeping the buttons, Gaz's head suddenly popped out from the mass of leaves directly above Gir. Dib gasped in helpless horror as Gaz drew back a fist, but Gir noticed the danger in time and simply flew to the next tree. Gaz's fist swung harmlessly though empty space so that she overbalanced and just barely caught herself from falling. For a moment Gaz glowered as furiously as if she was about to chase Gir to the new tree. Almost immediately, however, the fire in her eyes faded just slightly; she sank back on the branch as if she realized she would just get the same result next time, and she preferred not to look even more powerless than she was already.

Snarling, she withdrew back into the leafy canopy and a moment later stalked back out from behind the tree. For perhaps the very first time in her life, Gaz did not know what to do; none of her rage and none of her powers availed her a thing.

Sitting comfortably in this new perch, Gir continued to hit the beeping and booping buttons at random. Suddenly the beeps began to slow down, becoming fainter and fainter until the Gameslave was totally silent. Shaking the GameSlave, Gir now looked as heartbroken as a robot can look."AW, it's broken!"

The batteries must finally be dead, which was the point at which Gaz usually began acting like a runaway buzz saw. "That is MINE! Give it BACK or ELSE!" Gaz commanded, her voice both more shaky and more dangerous than Dib had ever heard it.

"I wanna keep it, Gazzie!" Gir called down. "Master can fix it. Master knows everything. He told me himself."

"If you do not return that game to me right now I will make your life a nightmare from which there will be no waking and I will... " Gaz went into one of those long swaggering tirades Dib had heard so often he now knew them by heart.

Gir pondered. What would be as much fun as playing the explosion game had been? "Dance for me Gazzie!"

"... and then after THAT I will ..."

"Dance for me Gazzie and then I give it back to you!" Gir began to hop and skip happily, demonstrating how to dance as if it was simply a matter of Gaz not understanding what Gir wanted.

Up until now, death threats had always delivered to Gaz exactly what she wanted, but now she found herself threatening something without any concept of its own death. Moreover, the minute you sink to arguing with a toddler you've already lost; even if you do win the argument, the toddler will never know it.

Gir's dancing slowed down. "You don't know how to dance, Gazzie?" the robot said pityingly, and for Gaz, this was too much.

She began to dance.

Anybody as inactive as Gaz would find dancing awkward to begin with, but what she found even more foreign was co-operating with somebody to get what she wanted instead of injuring them.

"Whee! This is fun!" chirruped Gir, dancing along with Gaz. "Isn't it, Gazzie?"

Gaz's only response was an unintelligible grunt.

By this time Dib was nearly unconscious from lack of oxygen. Frantically he pressed both hands over his mouth and nose to keep from exploding with laughter; even a chuckle at Gaz's expense would be suicidal.

He had watched Gir playing with Gaz's Gameslave with a horrified fascination, a fascination which quickly lost its horror once he realized Gir actually had a good chance of surviving. As Gaz continued dancing, however, he began to cautiously back away, not knowing how much longer he could possibly contain his reaction.

Slowly, Dib turned around, and then began to run and run and run as fast as he could. When he stopped to catch his breath, he looked around one more time, before running around a brick wall, ducking around a fence and diving into a bush before collapsing to the ground laughing as he had never before laughed in all his life.

Any lingering tension now flushed out of him on wave after wave of laughter; indeed he now laughed all the harder for it than had any of the spectators the day before.

Peal after peal of laughter from a boy who so very seldom had anything to laugh about rang out to fill the very sky. This time nobody shouted at him to shut up and Dib laughed as if something deep inside his core would continue to laugh for the rest of his life.

Every time Dib thought he had finally reached the end of his laughter and went to stand up again, the memory of Gaz's evil, terrifying face as reflected by that absurd little robot rose once more in his mind. Gir's tiny chin snapping out at a jaunty angle reduced that overbearing, tyrannical face to an absurd parody completely devoid of any threat, and Dib helplessly fell down shrieking once more with a newly freshened burst of laughter.

The very idea of Gaz... DANCING! Those feet, kicking... without actually... kicking ANYBODY! It was just too funny! Dib couldn't stand it! He rolled over and over, beating his fists on the ground as the water streamed from his eyes.

When he could finally sit up once more, Dib suddenly noticed a chill across the front of his pants. Good thing his pants were black already, because he sure didn't need to go to the bathroom any more. Not only did this not bother him in the least, it added to his feeling of relief.

Wiping his eyes, Dib struggled to his feet. "I'll get thrown out of any grocery store I try to go into looking like this. I'd better go home first."

He made quite a sight as he walked along. With a grin splitting his face, tears streaking his cheeks, and clothes besmeared with mud and grass stains, Dib now looked as if he had just won the fight of his life.

Upon arriving home, Dib cautiously sneaked in the back door. Only when he had determined that the kitchen was empty did he dare to peer into the living room.

Gaz was indeed curled up on the couch, hunched even more intently than usual over her game and pushing buttons with perhaps triple her usual intensity. Clearly she had obtained her own batteries from somewhere; this time she'd finally got tired of waiting and actually had to budge long enough to do something for herself. That insufferable, smug smirk that settled over her face whenever she had maimed somebody was nowhere in evidence, so Dib knew that Gir was all right. So far, Gaz had yet to notice Dib had returned, which suited him just fine.

_It's like_ _she's telling herself something's all over, _Dib thought,_ and at the same time insisting it never even happened!_ While that was nothing at all compared to what she'd done to him, Dib was delighted that Gaz had for once met her own match. He made a mental note to never again be without chocolate bubble gum for more reasons than one.

A few remaining giggles which Dib was trying so desperately to stifle kept pushing their way out through his tightly pressed lips. Trying even harder to choke them down, Dib began to hiccup... which inevitably annoyed Gaz... just like every other single thing he ever did, strangely enough.

"Shut the HELL up, idiot!" Gaz hissed, more tension than usual in her voice. "You're bugging me again."

Dib's eyes narrowed._ Do I ever _NOT_ "bug" her? What the hell _IS_ her problem?_

"I ca - HIC! I ca - HIC! I can't hel - HIC! can't help it, Gaz," protested Dib, pouring a glass of water. He held his nose as he gulped it all down, nearly blacking out as he finally gulped the last mouthful. It wasn't working, however. "HIC!"

"I said... Shut! UP!" Gaz ground out. She had put her game on Pause and was now slowly lowering it to her lap, never a good sign.

"I'm tr - HIC! I'm trying but I ca - HIC! I can't just stop do - HIC! doing this because I wa- HIC! because I want to." Dib couldn't recall the complicated scientific explanation for another hiccup remedy his father had taught him a long time ago, though luckily he did remember the formula. Dib found the sugar bag and scooped out a small handful which he moistened with vinegar before gulping down the bizarre result, but that didn't work either. "HIC!"

"Well, if you don't shut up, I'll MAKE you shut up!"

"Gaz... as long as you keep me talking - HIC! - I'm going to keep hiccup - HIC! - hiccuping! It might work if I - HIC! - if I stop bre - HIC! - stop breathing." Dib inhaled as deeply as he could, held his nose, and closed his eyes, concentrating.

"That's an excellent suggestion." With a grim flick of her wrist, Gaz set her game aside. She stalked into the kitchen and slowly pulled open the cutlery drawer before removing the longest and widest meat cleaver it contained.

Dib heard the unmistakable clank of metal, spun around, and the breath froze in his throat.

The old wives' tale that a sudden scare can stop hiccups has a remarkable basis in fact.

Just beyond where she could have reached him with the blade, Gaz waited a few seconds to see if he was going to dare hiccup again. "See. I knew you were doing that on purpose just to bug me. Weren't you. I SAID, WEREN'T YOU."

Dib knew enough to nod yes. Satisfied, Gaz returned to the drawer and dropped the cleaver back into it before slamming it shut with a clattering thud, then threw herself back into her game with renewed vigor, determined to obliterate the memory of not being able to destroy someone.

Slowly, Dib let his breath out with relief. He had heard this was one way to cure hiccups but he'd never before witnessed so dramatic a demonstration!

Dib turned and headed up the stairs to clean up. Quite a few things had happened that day. Dib had made friends with someone who could actually keep a few steps ahead of Gaz. And while she hadn't done it quite the way he would have wanted, Gaz had actually done two things for him in as many days.

Dib turned his face away from her as he felt a little smile stealing back to his lips, a smile which he this time pushed to the side of his mouth facing away from her. Dib resolved to remember this delicious incident. In the weeks and months to come, recalling it would provide a much needed morale boost when he sorely needed it.

_(A/N) My most profound thanks to all my reviewers! Incidents like those in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 also tend to show up a lot in fics classified as "Humor" so I was more than a little concerned about what reactions I would get. Encouraging sympathy for Dib was exactly what I was seeking to do, and I must have done something right because I was very pleasantly surprised. Thank you. _

_Some of you may be wondering why I of all people would write a fic this way._

_I know canon Gaz is nowhere near this bad. In the show she utters mostly empty threats, and only very seldom goes out of her way to be cruel. When she goes on one of her berserk revenge rampages, she always has something that at least tries to resemble an actual reason. However even in the show she has an inhuman coldness that leaves me scratching my head over how anybody can find anything appealing about her. _

_But in fanfic she's a thousand times worse, and this is what I am reacting to. I write Gaz exactly as she looks to me on this site, minus, of course, any suggestion that such demonic behavior is in any way amusing or admirable. _

_I got the idea for what would become Chapter 2 after reading a fic where Gaz thinks a really intelligent counterpoint to one of Dib's arguments would be jumping off the sidewalk to walk to skool in the middle of the road. Dib notices a car coming and leaps to save her only to get killed himself, so the world loses a caring, heroic person and keeps a selfish, manipulative one. Sorry, Dib, I know you believe that's the right thing to do and all, but I just do not see how humanity is any better off this way. _

_I'm sure Chapter 3 had a lot of people wondering how I could write such a thing. Frankly, as much as I enjoy reading about Dib and as much as I love to laugh, I have all but stopped even attempting to read any IZ fics listed as "Humor." The one thing I have come to expect in such a fic is Dib being horribly injured in one of Gaz's overzealous rages, as if that alone in and of itself is enough to make a piece of writing funny. And apparently enough DO consider such a thing the very height of comicality that if they were all placed together they would form quite a sizeable, um, crowd... indeed. _

_Chapter 4 explains why it drove me up the wall when a fic ended with Gaz suddenly acting half civilized for the final few lines after being a mad dog the whole way through. Such a fic always left me wondering what she did after the story ended. Taken as a whole, such stories strongly suggest that she went right back to being the nightmare from hell... after some convenient timing had given her full credit for reforming._

_For a while I thought I had several separate stories, but once I realized that the common theme running through all of them is that a civilized society runs on contracts, I realized they would be much stronger together. _

_Once again, thanks for reading and reviewing!_


	8. Where am I?

I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.

Chapter 8 Where am I?

Dib woke up slowly, forced to stare straight up into the many small lights in rows far above him. Their unearthly green cast was unnerving. Dib was in some kind of circular room with a sectioned wall. Realization sank in like an icicle that he was solidly pinned down, spreadeagled on an icy metal tray. What the purpose of the tray was, he did not know, but it seemed to have a rim of some kind around its edges.

Dib studied the walls, and found strange markings on the walls. At first he thought it must be merely upside down writing, but upon further studying it he found it was far more bizarre than any merely upside down alphabet. Either way, they resembled no letters he had ever seen in any language.

Suddenly, Dib noticed something looming on the wall behind his head. After careful study of the images he could see on the wall, Dib gradually came to realize that one was a sketch of an Irken with all its organs exposed, and on a sheet of paper next to it, a blank outline of a human surrounding a question mark. Something similar to a crayon had added a long slash of black resembling his own hair scythe had been added to the human's head.

Grinning wickedly, Zim came into Dib's view, and lifted what appeared to be a scalpel. Dib craned his neck to see better and then saw it wasn't a scalpel at all but some kind of instrument he couldn't even identify.

Zim lowered the instrument until it was touching Dib's skin. Dib lurched with a grunt; in the first second it felt icy, then it felt hot, and finally Dib felt blood trickling across his skin.

"DAD! DAD, HELP!" he screamed desperately, trying in vain to thrash and struggle against his bonds. His mind whirling, Dib could sense something coming up to the door of the room, a big and powerful something. "DAAAAAD!" Dib continued to scream.

In the next second Dib was looking up at the goggled face of his father, and the alien dissection room was far away. His father was rubbing the sweat from Dib's forehead, and chuckling, "Room too hot, son? I'll just open your window! That's how to lower room temperature!"

"Stay with me," Dib murmured, like a small toddler scared of the dark. He reached out to make sure his father's hand was really there, and found it to be real in a way that the fading dissection room no longer was.

Instead of reaching over to open the window, the Professor continued to stroke Dib's forehead. "Why, what is it, son?" he now asked gently.

Dib tried to describe what he had just experienced, but no adequate words came to mind. "Bad," he finally said.

"Why, I believe you had a nightmare, son," said the Professor. "Here's something we can do about that," he continued. "It has been scientifically proven that getting up and moving away from the place of sleep has been shown effective against insomnia. I hypothesize that this same method will also work against a nightmare. Let us try it."

All too willingly Dib got up and began to walk with the Professor as he led his son downstairs toward the living room; he was careful to walk on tiptoe past Gaz's bedroom door.

Once downstairs in the living room, the Professor sat on the couch and Dib immediately cuddled up to him. The Professor reached for the remote and began flicking though the channels. Finding a channel with a science fiction movie on it, the Professor set the remote down and prepared to watch. This time, however, at the first glimpse of an alien, Dib hastily grabbed the remote and began frantically pushing buttons to escape the now too unnerving sight.

"No, no aliens... not now."

To the Professor's amazement, Dib found a channel with a good safe black and white Western on it, one with no chance of aliens popping up to jolt him back to that terror-ridden scene he had escaped from.

The Professor looked down in relief at the now dozing Dib. _My dear son,_ he thought. _Finally you aren't insane any more. If you are now actually refusing to watch aliens on TV, that must mean that you are over your insanity! I must find some way to reward you. _

The Professor thought and thought. This was the way he had dreamed of finding Dib acting. For once he had actually turned away from those aliens he never stopped talking about. The Professor searched his mind for how best to reward Dib. He looked up the stairs toward Gaz's room, and realized that he hadn't been home before midnight for... how long now? It was only that night that he had found and unwrapped the "World's Greatest Dad" coffee mug Dib had given him the previous Christmas. A pang tugged at his throat.

_It is only when I see you acting like a baby that I realize how fast you are growing up. And you are growing up all on your own. _

_I have it! Every scientific paper I ever read on the subject tells me a boy needs a father. I have to find a way to be at home more... _

As the cowboys galloped toward the pass to head off the rustlers, and as Dib slept peacefully, the Professor stroked his chin and thought.

The End

(A/N) Now Dib has officially received everything he asked for in "Dib's Christmas List."

It's been a while, but I'm finally back on track. Much is to come, and most if not all my stories from now on, with the exception of the Karma Circles, will be interconnected once again.


End file.
